Movies You've Seen Recently |OT| March 2017

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Midnight in Paris: Ok, I consider myself an anti-nostalgia kind of guy, seeing it as a temporal "grass is always greener" thing, so when i heard about this movie, I put it on my watchlist, and now I've finally seen it. It does get its message in the climax, but for most of the movie, the Roaring Twenties is the "golden age" for Gil. He meets all these famous writers and Picasso in a couple of nights (see TV Tropes: In The Past Everyone Will Be Famous), and even falls in love with a woman while he's struggling with his own fiancee in the present of 2010. I think the message would have worked better if he was shown the problems even with the '20s instead of getting what he pictured the '20s were like.

That aside, I do like the movie. I like the conversations about writing and the story about one of Picasso's paintings. The two romances are a good allegory with the allure of the past and frustrations of the modern time. In the end, I got what I came for.
 
Badlands (1973)


Rewatching Terrence Malick's filmography ahead of Song to Song's release next week (and premiere at SXSW this week), and this is first up. I hadn't seen it since I rewatched it around the time of Tree of Life's release, and rewatching now reminds me how much I love it. It's funny and charming as hell, and definitely Malick's most accessible work, without sacrificing or lacking the elements that make his movies so special.

I still prefer Days of Heaven, Thin Red Line, The New World and Tree of Life over it (and most other movies for that matter), but that's not to take away from how damn good it is. Cinematography is beautiful, Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek are fantastic, and the soundtrack is awesome. I'd recommend it to Malick fans and non Malick fans alike.
 
The Last Emperor (1987): This film has the illustrious distinction of being the first to win Best Picture after I was born, an accolade I'm sure is treasured by all involved in the production. This is a biographical account of the life of Puyi, the last Qing dynastic Emperor of China. Most notable for the Chinese government allowing the filmmakers access to the Forbidden City, which obviously means great production value. As a story, it's kind of choppy, particularly when it follows Puyi after his expulsion from the Forbidden City, at which point it starts leapfrogging years at a time tracking his involvement with the Japanese. The scenes of his early life are the strongest. The film also feels like it keeps you at a distance from the characters in a way that I'm not sure really works.
 
In anticipation (is that the right word here?) of Alien: Covenant, I rewatched Prometheus over the weekend. I really wanted to give this another chance, but no. The worst part is it starts pretty well, with the amazing theme music and the beautiful flyover shots. But then characters start doing things and words come out of their mouths, and you have to wonder if a human being even wrote this or if it was some misguided experiment to get a scripting AI to write a whole movie after Ridley Scott got it wine drunk.
 
Fancy Clown said:
In anticipation (is that the right word here?) of Alien: Covenant, I rewatched Prometheus over the weekend. I really wanted to give this another chance, but no. The worst part is it starts pretty well, with the amazing theme music and the beautiful flyover shots. But then characters start doing things and words come out of their mouths, and you have to wonder if a human being even wrote this or if it was some misguided experiment to get a scripting AI to write a whole movie after Ridley Scott got it wine drunk.
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Got it. Needs wine to watch this again and enjoy it. We talking case or should I just take a portable player to a winery?
 
Prometheus stands as perhaps the most disappointed I've ever been exiting a theater. I was expecting greatness I got over two hours of blaaahhh.
 
new Ghost in the shell movie looks amazing. that is visually and music wise. The rest looks bad.

still going to see it, but I don't see this doing well box office wise.
 
TheFlow said:
new Ghost in the shell movie looks amazing. that is visually and music wise. The rest looks bad.

still going to see it, but I don't see this doing well box office wise.
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Totally agree. I mean, it's by the director of Snow White and the Huntsman, the script is written by some of the Bayformers writers, and the cast is pretty meh, so I never expected it to be anything but a screensaver or cool action/scenery GIF mine, with cool original and new music.

I'm still going to see it in IMAX out of morbid curiosity and as an obligation, being a huge fan of the anime, but I'd be surprised if it's not garbage.
 
Blader said:
Where does this thing about Ridley being a wino come from?
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Pretty sure in the behind the scenes of Prometheus the crew said they knew they were about to have a meeting with Ridley because someone would come around and pass out big ass glasses of wine to everybody.

lordxar said:
Got it. Needs wine to watch this again and enjoy it. We talking case or should I just take a portable player to a winery?
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Doesn't matter, just keep drinking until the characters' actions begin to make sense or you black out, whichever comes first.
 
So glad I got to see this secret film as part of Odeon Screen Unseen (at some points of the year, you go to see an upcoming film early but you don't know what it's going to be).

Why black people?
get_out_film_by_digi_matrix-db1ht4z.jpg

Get Out
This is a film that tackles race relations head-on as a horror satire. Racists have been villians in films before, but they're usually openly hateful and of the more conservative variety. Get Out is a brilliantly incisive social nightmare of a film about black exotification perpetrated by mainly white liberals. You know the kind, especially if you're a minority in an all-white party or event. They'll remind you of your race and ethnicity, even if you don't identify as much with your respective culture. They'll say things like "I would have voted for Obama a third term" or try to awkwardly be cool with you. They are aware of how they come across, an all-white family with black servants, but not of what their statements sound like (hopefully this film along with Dear White People makes them more aware). These microaggressions turn into an uncomfortable mix. This scenario was also covered in an episode of Atlanta ("Juneteenth") by Donald Glover, who appropriately has one of his songs ("Redbone") in Get Out, but here it's taken to the utmost sinister level.

On a filmmaking level, this is a very confident debut feature from Jordan Peele. The cinematography is excellent right from the start in building the dread, especially with how the Sunken Place is portrayed. It's already injected the the fear of teacups and hypnosis into pop culture. There are some joke-y jump scares (oh boy did they get the ladies next to me) and some genuine ones, but mostly it's the characters that are the scariest element, particularly Bradley Whitford's and Catherine Keener's. The cast is great across the board, and Daniel Kaluuya (Black Mirror) is your man if you ever need a great crier. It has funny moments but that's more due to the uncomfortable nature of what's going on rather than the film itself trying to consciously make jokes. The film is great at depicting a hopeless atmosphere but then knows when to switch it up to make the experience entertaining without sacrificing the hardships Daniel Kaluuya's Chris has to go through. Could see this being one of my favourites of the year.

Stay woke.
 
Wish I liked Get Out as much as other people seem to. The ideas were sharp but the genre construction felt derivative and not terribly effective in scares, mystery, or payoff. A lot of the plot moving stuff felt clunky to me too, especially the TSA friend subplot.
 
Fancy Clown said:
Wish I liked Get Out as much as other people seem to. The ideas were sharp but the genre construction felt derivative and not terribly effective in scares, mystery, or payoff. A lot of the plot moving stuff felt clunky to me too, especially the TSA friend subplot.
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The tsa is what made the movie.

Edit: the horror wasn't supposed be in the jump scares but in the fact that stuff like his can happen to a brother. It is that unsettling horror that it follows and the witch are great at
 
Well, last night I finally watched Trainspotting.

Fucking hell, what a film! That baby scene hit me like a fucking speeding train.

I'm not sure what else I can say that hasn't been said before, but I loved it. The soundtrack is God tier, and I really found myself caring about all the characters, now the ending was epic, I'm not sure if it's because I know there is a sequel out for it or not, but the cliffhanger that it left me on really has left me wanting more and dying to see the sequel.

I can't wait to watch it again, and I cannot believe I've left it all these years to watch it, especially considering the fact that when it came out I was right on the verge of being a young adult.

9/10
 
TheFlow said:
The tsa is what made the movie
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...nah. He was pretty funny but he was mostly just there for clunky exposition dumps and an
easy out at the end
. He felt too much like he was there soley because it was convenient for the plot and not an organic part of the story.

TheFlow said:
Edit: the horror wasn't supposed be in the jump scares but in the fact that stuff like his can happen to a brother. It is that unsettling horror that it follows and the witch are great at
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And those parts are more effective, but it's still loaded with poor jump scares. The movie was too overt and silly most of the time to be actually scary, but there were some nice disquieting moments like the dinner table conversation.
 
Fancy Clown said:
...nah. He was pretty funny but he was mostly just there for clunky exposition dumps and an
easy out at the end
. He felt too much like he was there soley because it was convenient for the plot and not an organic part of the story.
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Strong disagree with you on that. Bro was there for his friend from the beginning. He did what anybody would natural do especially when he is holding the guys dog. The exposition was already done without the tsa friend. He just sped up the process.

The ending was one of the best endings I have seen in a long time. It plays off the stereotype and what the audience is used to.

The tsa played a great role and is one of my favorite supporting characters. Did his job
 
TheFlow said:
Strong disagree with you on that. Bro was there for his friend from the beginning. He did what anybody would natural do especially when he is holding the guys dog. The exposition was already done without the tsa friend. He just sped up the process.

The ending was one of the best endings I have seen in a long time. It plays off the stereotype and what the audience is used to.

The tsa played a great role and is one of my favorite supporting characters. Did his job
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It was too obvious from early on that
he would get his bud out of there, and it was contrived that the family would let him keep his phone in play so long when they are pretty careful about making people disappear without a trace otherwise. And the periodic info dump calls to reiterate things to the audience were unnecessary imo
. It undercut the tension too much for my liking. I did like that
they played with your expectations at the end that it would be some racist cop, but it would be a lot more effective if the movie hadn't reminded us that he was trying to get his friend out of there throughout the whole movie
.
 
I haven't seen Get Out yet and know almost nothing about it, but "The TSA made the movie" made me laugh. Put that shit on the bluray cover!
 
Fancy Clown said:
It was too obvious from early on that
he would get his bud out of there, and it was contrived that the family would let him keep his phone in play so long when they are pretty careful about making people disappear without a trace otherwise. And the periodic info dump calls to reiterate things to the audience were unnecessary imo
. It undercut the tension too much for my liking. I did like that
they played with your expectations at the end that it would be some racist cop, but it would be a lot more effective if the movie hadn't reminded us that he was trying to get his friend out of there throughout the whole movie
.
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I agree that it was obvious but handled extremely well because
the tsa was out of the picture, with no backup so then we get the all crazy actions scenes and the character rekting without no help.

I also can't say it was contrived because
the protagonist discovered their plan and was trying to escape. There plan didn't go as smooth.

I don't think it would have been as affective because
withot the tsa acting like he cared the whole time and going for help the ending would just been random. Sure it would of added the shock value but it would of also been a bs ending

Edit: don't get me wrong the movie is not breaking grounds but I can't deny it is well crafted. I am going to buy the blue ray when it comes out. Great timing of the film release too with moonlight winning best picture
 
History of the World: Part I: Not my favorite Brooks movie, but I did like the Spanish Inquisition number, the brief Old Testament segment, and the French Revolution. Roman Empire, not so much.
 
Fancy Clown said:
In anticipation (is that the right word here?) of Alien: Covenant, I rewatched Prometheus over the weekend. I really wanted to give this another chance, but no. The worst part is it starts pretty well, with the amazing theme music and the beautiful flyover shots. But then characters start doing things and words come out of their mouths, and you have to wonder if a human being even wrote this or if it was some misguided experiment to get a scripting AI to write a whole movie after Ridley Scott got it wine drunk.
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your first mistake was giving it another chance. God I hate that movie.

Scott is still a craftsman and all, but god damn was the script for that one stockpiled with bad ideas. Except for the abortion and hologram sequence, which actually survived from the already subpar first draft. In terms of beat structure it's very close to that first draft too, so I don't really accept the 'you can't reduce a movie to its script' stance as valid. If it's not there in the script, it's not going to be there in the movie, unless your director is an intuitive writer or just has the experience to make a good movie out of poor ingredients.
 
X-Men: Days of Future Past: Pretty good X-Men movie. Thought it was going to be a straight time travel movie, but now there's higher stakes in the "present". The Pentagon break-in was great, and the climax was epic. I also liked the scene with older and younger Charles.

Now I wonder how Magneto got out of the Pentagon in the original timeline.
 
Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
[Pulls out an unlit cigarette and faces Falco]
J.J. Hunsecker: Match me, Sidney.
Sidney Falco: Not right this minute, J.J.

Lots of fantastic lines, but even smaller moments in the dialogue are given that extra something to make it special. Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis are phenomenal. Such despicable characters, and you can't look away, especially when they're playing off each other. Also has great music and some awe-inspiring shots (like the sense of power you feel from looking out over the city).
4/5

Everybody Wants Some!! (2016)
Great movie, and a worthy companion to Dazed and Confused. Finnegan probably stands out the most, but I loved the whole cast. Even characters I disliked were excellent.
xT0LHun.jpg
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4/5

Donkey Skin (1970)
Maybe it's just not for me.
When the ring-testing scene started I said "oh god, this is going to last 15 minutes isn't it", and I wasn't far off, but I did love "Miss Glum, unemployed" at the end. Maybe Miss Glum should have been the star of the film.
2.5/5

Pete's Dragon (2016)
Needs more Robert Redford.
3/5

High and Dizzy (1920)
Fun Harold Lloyd short. Never Weaken is my favorite of his short films so far, and I'd also put Number, Please ahead of this.

Don't Look Now (1973)
A masterpiece of mood. I was even feeling sick from the unnerving atmosphere and sense of loss. Strangely, it is the ending that really disappointed me:
It's scary enough, but it doesn't capitalize on the strengths of the movie. I thought it would be more about their daughter, or about the two women who had acted bizarrely at times, but it left all my questions unanswered on that and didn't live up to the mood it had built on those questions.
3.5/5

Carnival of Souls (1962)
This reminds me of Eraserhead, where I imagine everyone that watched it went out and made their own movie. It's an excellent horror film, beautifully filmed and creepy, but the level of inspiration is even greater than its strengths as a film.
3.5/5
 
Everybody wants some is one of the best movies I've seen at making complete douche bags human as hell. I want to hang out with those dudes.
 
Rounding up a bunch of films to watch this month and can't decide which version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo to watch?

I love Fincher and trust it'll be a great adaptation but maybe it's best to watch the original first. sure enough, I'll watch both eventually but don't want to watch them so close together.
 
The original dragon tattoo is super bland and a typical procedure flick. Good main performance.

The Fincher version is much better paced, more stylized and features two good performances (helps that the characters felt more developed).

Been a few years since I've seen either
 
Get Out

Overall I enjoyed it but I'm of 2 minds about this movie. When its delving into the casual racism and social commentary about the culture clash between white people and minorities I loved it. Found those scenes to be pretty hilarious or awkward as hell to watch. It's really good when the movie plays with the guess who's coming to dinner meets black stepford wives angle.

But the stock horror music and clichéd jump scares I wasn't feeling. Id have liked to have seen peele mess around more with the racial stuff here instead. For most of its runtime we've got one of those dope genre stories that serve as political commentary. Like a good episode of the Twilight Zone or invasion of the body snatchers among other examples. But when the curtain is pulled and we find out what's really going on I wasn't fucking with it as much.
why are they transplanting people? Those two were the grandma and grandpa? wth. Was more interesting when we were being led to assume they were trying to suppress the black people and make them new slaves.

Oh and the TSA stuff was wack. Mostly corny scenes that was only funny during that one phone call later in the movie. My dude took the Jamie Kennedy character from scream and decided to devote a whole subplot to him smh

Anyways it gets a 7/10 because I was really enjoying a lot of what it was doing throughout most of its runtime. And it's cool to have a horror movie that deals with racism and gentrification. I hope peele writes more stuff like this but dials back on the skit characters like that TSA guy.

And I liked that kaluuya had common sense in here. He was pretty proactive for a horror protagonist
 
Nah the conversations between all the white ppl and the main character were pretty funny. And the tsa guys phone call later in the movie

His last scene was corny tho.
 
Ainsz said:
Rounding up a bunch of films to watch this month and can't decide which version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo to watch?

I love Fincher and trust it'll be a great adaptation but maybe it's best to watch the original first. sure enough, I'll watch both eventually but don't want to watch them so close together.
Click to expand...

Fincher version is a lot better, overcast's assessment is correct.
 
Discotheque said:
Get Out

why are they transplanting people? Those two were the grandma and grandpa? wth. Was more interesting when we were being led to assume they were trying to suppress the black people and make them new slaves.
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You know all the black exotification earlier in the movie, where Lakeith and Daniel's characters are being paraded around like in an auction? "With your frame and genetic makeup". They want black people because they believe they're the most fit and healthy. That's why the blind dude wants Chris' eyes. They can also just control the black people to do whatever they want. So they're effectively slaves in their own bodies.
 
overcast said:
The original dragon tattoo is super bland and a typical procedure flick. Good main performance.

The Fincher version is much better paced, more stylized and features two good performances (helps that the characters felt more developed).

Been a few years since I've seen either
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Huh, both are pretty well reviewed. May go with the supposed worse one first then.
Or maybe not.
 
Messofanego said:
You know all the black exotification earlier in the movie, where Lakeith and Daniel's characters are being paraded around like in an auction? "With your frame and genetic makeup". They want black people because they believe they're the most fit and healthy. That's why the blind dude wants Chris' eyes. They can also just control the black people to do whatever they want. So they're effectively slaves in their own bodies.
Click to expand...

Yeah. It's also
about both the appropriation and suppression of blackness
I think.
 
Discotheque said:
Nah the conversations between all the white ppl and the main character were pretty funny. And the tsa guys phone call later in the movie

His last scene was corny tho.
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spoilers for the end.
it was corny but so satisfying. I felt like Chris. That line was the conclusion of everything the TSA guy been saying about basically being FBI. Of course it is not true, but couldn't help but clap.
That ending was just so enjoyable. Sometimes we just need stuff like that especically after all these depressing endings from recent releases.
giphy.gif
 
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